Pay to pray

How the Russian Orthodox Church is making faith more expensive

Across Russia, the cost of church rites has surged since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Voluntary donations” for weddings, funerals, and baptisms are rising far faster than inflation, even as demand for funeral services has grown amid mounting wartime losses. RFE/RL’s Russian service, Radio Svoboda, looked at how the Russian Orthodox Church has raised the cost of faith. Meduza summarizes the outlet’s reporting.

When Anastasia, a resident of Kopeysk in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, went to order memorial prayers for deceased relatives, she was stunned by the new prices. Two years ago, she paid 100 rubles ($1.25) per name for a year. Now the same prayer costs 5,000 rubles ($62) per name.

“I saw the price list and froze,” she told reporters. “I used to give 1,000 rubles [$12.50] and list ten names. Now it’s 5,000 for just one. I couldn’t believe it.”

At her church, the so-called “voluntary donations” that parishioners make for religious rites rose sharply last winter. Across Russia, the cost of church services has increased by nearly 40 percent since the start of the full-scale war, according to a recent analysis by The Moscow Times’ Russian-language service.

Calling these payments “donations” is something of a misnomer, said Archpriest Andrey Kordochkin, a former parish rector. In practice, they function more like prices. The amounts are typically set by a church’s rector and vary by region. “It’s hardly surprising,” he said, “that in central Moscow the sums are higher than in rural areas.”

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Parishioners in Moscow confirmed the trend. Memorial services cost more, candles and icons are more expensive, and baptism fees can run into the thousands of rubles. Some accept the increases as an inevitable consequence of the times; others said sacraments should cost only what a person can afford.

The steepest price hikes — outpacing official inflation — have affected the most commonly requested rites: baptisms, weddings, and funerals. And demand for funeral services has risen; according to estimates by Meduza and Mediazona, more than 200,000 Russian soldiers have been killed the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Most of the money collected by churches stays at the parish or diocesan level, according to Nikolai Mitrokhin, a sociologist and historian of religion. The Russian Orthodox Church operates as a network of legally independent entities, he explained. Only a small share of parish income flows upward, and an even smaller portion reaches the Moscow Patriarchate, which has its own sources of funding.

Kordochkin said there are practical reasons for rising “donations.” Churches face higher utility bills and other operating costs, and staff wages must keep pace with inflation. In some dioceses, he added, parishes are also required to make larger regular payments to diocesan authorities.

According to sources familiar with church finances, some dioceses now raise recommended donation amounts once a year through centralized decisions, partly to avoid discrepancies between neighboring churches that might confuse or frustrate parishioners.

Still, Kordochkin cautioned, there is a fine line to maintain. Priests are responsible not only for spiritual life but also for supporting employees and keeping churches running, he noted. “But it’s fundamentally important,” he said, “that people who come to church don’t feel like they’re walking into a store.”